TIME TRIAL

About the Film

TIME TRIAL takes us into the final races of cyclist David Millar’s career, leading up to his last encounter with the Tour de France.

We go inside the peloton, we’re pushed up impossible climbs and forced down rapid descents, we lie alongside him in his hotel room in post-race agony.

We ride in the support car, the source of comfort, supplies and fleeting relief from the cold. And we know that every mile travelled is a mile closer to the end. TIME TRIALreveals how the human spirit is driven by forces deeper than success and glory.

Featuring

David Millar

Scottish-born David Millar bought his first road bike aged 15 and when he turned 18 he moved to France to race. Two years later, in 1997, he was offered his first professional contract leading the biggest French team, Cofidis. He was soon winning stages of the Tour de France, La Vuelta a Espana and World Championships before receiving a suspension for doping in 2004.

Since then, based on his experiences, Millar has become an authoritative voice on anti-doping. In 2008, he became part-owner and rider for the Garmin Slipstream team who became renowned for their strong anti-doping stance.

Since his resurgence as a clean cyclist, Millar has made his mark as one of Britain’s most successful road cyclists, with stage wins in all three of the Grand Tours (Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta a Espana) as well as winning the gold medal in the time trial at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and the silver medal in the same event at the UCI Road World Championships that same year.

Director

Finlay Pretsell

Director Finlay Pretsell is an award-winning filmmaker who once set out on the long road to becoming a professional cyclist, riding for a few national teams and representing Scotland a number of times.

Finlay’s breakthrough as a filmmaker was in 2007 with Standing Start, a short film which followed his passion for cycling (shortlisted for Grierson Newcomer Award), taking a unique look at the world of track cycling featuring world champion Craig Maclean.

He followed up that success with several more short films, winning Scotland’s top prize, a BAFTA for Ma Bar, which was shown at the prestigious Sundance Film festival and over 50 other international film festivals, and Cutting Loose, which was financed by the UK Film Council and BBC. The film won a raft of awards including Best Documentary at Encounters FF and the Grand Jury prize at Asterfest, and qualified for Oscar nomination after a theatrical run in New York in 2012.

Most recently Finlay produced Norfolk (2015), a feature film directed by longstanding collaborator Martin Radich starring Denis Menochet (Inglorious Basterds) and financed through BBC Films, BFI and Creative England. It premiered at IFFR 2015 and was nominated for the Michael Powell Award at EIFF 2015.

Finlay has been an integral part of Scottish Documentary Institute since 2005.